I'm Andy Warren, currently a SQL Server trainer with End to End Training. Over the past few years I've been a developer, DBA, and IT Director. I was one of the original founders of SQLServerCentral.com and helped grow that community from zero to about 300k members before deciding to move on to other ventures.

In a departure from my usual plan, this year I drove up to Jacksonville mid-morning in time to have a leisurely lunch with my family, and then had them drop me off at the University of North Florida about 1:30 pm. It’s definitely different to arrive in after lunch, all the excitement and chaos is done, now it’s routine. I ran into a few people when I arrived; Bayer White (the organizer), Eric Wisdahl, and Brian McDonald.

I sat through most of a presentation on Continuous Integration by Esteban Garcia (who leads the Orlando .Net Group/ONETUG), one on Office 365 by Joe Homnick (the various licensing models were interesting), and just a bit of the session by Sara Hand on Funding for Startups. I had the last slot of the day and did my short presentation on statistics for a crowd of about 25, good audience participation and quite a few stayed after to ask questions.

That was the day for me, back to family for the evening, stopping at the Apple Store to look around and thinking how smooth the IPads are in operation,something reinforced later in the evening at Barnes & Noble looking at the Color Nook – interesting device and price point,but not quite as responsive (to me at least) at the OS level.

Reflecting on the event on the way home doing an afternoon session worked out well for my schedule, but if I’m not going to be able to stay for the day I think I’ll lean towards morning sessions when I can. I missed seeing the energy and logistics of the first part of the day.